The real Glaswegian working class voice in the independence debate read by thousands, the BBC and other related media, secured the first criminal conviction against one of the seven top cybernats outed by the Daily Mail

Well folks, it’s that time of the year again so without further ado; Merry Xmas
and a Happy New Year to you and your family when it comes! It has been a year
of ups and downs, where some people in the political arena have fallen on their
swords and others have shown how out of their depth they are.

2017 has still seen Brexit going forward, the winds of
change are starting to be felt not just in Scotland but
right across Europe, the ripple will
continue.

I would like to thank all the people who took the
opportunity to drop by the blog to read and comment on the stories posted. I
would also like to thank those who read my stories and decided to post them
elsewhere.

I would also like to thank the BBC in London for dropping by this year, I do
commentating on TV, hint, hint hint, maybe one day someone will take the hint!

All in all, it was a good year for blogging; I saw many of
my predictions unfolded before my eyes yet again.

My political highlights this year were standing for
councillor in Pollok, and of course helping three people get elected to Westminster.

Years ago, I
gave former SNP MP Anne McLaughlin a constituency case which she never bothered herself to do anything about, I never forgot that, so when in 2017 the opportunity
presented it self to dump her out of public office, I jumped at the chance.

Sadly Anne never saw the effort I put in to put her out in the street.

Former SNP MP Anne McLaughlin knows I am a good and hard campaigner,
and when she lost her seat by 242 votes, justice was done, and for the people
of Glasgow North East, they got a much better MP in the shape of Paul Sweeney. As to where I will campaign and for whom, I haven’t decided
yet.

It seems that SNP MP Mhairi Black has decided to open up her
heart in an exclusive interview with Mandy Rhodes. The article contains reasons
enough why Mhairi Black shouldn’t be an MP at the Commons; to me the chief
reason is that she basically isn’t interested. I take from her interview that
Black doesn’t understand public service, putting others before herself; I find
her interview to be in some ways a puff piece.

Elected in 2015, we get treated to a tale of how her next
door neighbour was Natalie McGarry, and they used to “hang out the windaes”
chatting like Glasgow
housewives, this begs the question, why weren’t they working. Also some people
have observed that Mhairi Black lived in Ralston which isn’t famous for its
tenements, not in the bit she lived anyway. Of course, we should remember that
her next door neighbour Natalie McGarry didn’t last the course.

It will be a long time in hell before Natalie McGarry,
Nicola Sturgeon’s professed ‘pal’ sees the inside of Westminster again, her
career is gone and not short enough it was too.

Apparently Black has said in relation to Westminster:

“I don’t enjoy it in the slightest. It is over 300 miles
away from my home, it is filled with sociopaths, and if it was any other
building, health and safety would shut it down in a heartbeat.”

She gets elected to one of the best places in the world to
develop her political education and she can’t recognise where she is standing,
and we are supposed to believe that her mind is razor sharp?

Black was elected to Paisley South and that turfed out
Douglas Alexander who was a prominent Labour MP, but that is the nature of
elections, no one has a right to a seat for life. Douglas Alexander held the
seat for 18 years, and if you have been in Paisley
you wouldn’t think this place is nirvana by any means.

One thing that Black acknowledges is that you get different
people in the SNP, you get socialists and you get ‘Conservatives’, the ‘Conservatives’
run the SNP, of course there is a sprinkling of ‘workies’ and pretend ‘workies’
to make the SNP look socialist to the punters, all a sham.

You only have to look at the SNP’s record to see it isn’t a ‘workers’
party, or a party of change or social justice or equality or any of the other
tags they have latched onto to get a voter cache for elections.

One part which has caught people’s attention was the bit
about Alex Salmond giving advice.

Alex Salmond takes her to lunch in the House of Commons after
being elected and thinks a few changes should be made in how she presents
herself. Black said the meeting between them wasn’t entirely comfortable.

She added:

“… I was just sitting chatting away to him and the whole
time I’m thinking, what’s the point of this meant to be – is this a date, do I
need to come out to Alex Salmond? It was fine, really, he was just giving me
tips here and there and then he says, ‘I’m sure Taz [Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh, then
a fellow SNP MP] will take you out to go shopping or something at some point
and you’ll find your own style’. He then said that the last time he’d had this
conversation it was with a young woman called Nicola Sturgeon”.

Nicola Sturgeon was famous for being what the press termed a
nippy sweetie which has been upgraded by a BBC comedy team to ‘horrible cow’,
horrible cow is after the makeover, not before.

Like can be cruel sometimes, especially when so many people
think ‘horrible cow’, don’t you think but one wonders, what ‘fashion’ Tasmina
Ahmed-Shiekh would have picked out for Black who looks as feminine as a Russian
ship yard worker and with a voice as rough as a badger’s arse.

In the end, Black thought:

“I am never going to be told how to dress, especially by a
man.”

Oh touchy……. I am sure members of the LGBT community doing
fashion will be upset by this comment!

On the issue of lack of help, Mhairi Black echoed some
things I said about the SNP, basically they don’t, the attitude by those in
charge; is to pap their shit off onto someone else and expect them to do it.
The SNP apparently run a mentoring service but the truth is; its shite, Black
got Fiona Hyslop who was as much use as a chocolate teapot.

In the past, I blogged on Nicola Sturgeon at Pollok SNP
social nights, basically Nicola Sturgeon would turn up, chat for a bit, then do
a speech and shortly afterwards disappear as fast as possible. I always tended
to think that she wanted to ‘get the hell out of Dodge’, and Pollok SNP wasn’t
full of people that you would want to socialise with anyway. So, I am not
surprised that Black said that she didn’t have a close relationship with
Sturgeon, I doubt that anyone has a close relationship with Sturgeon because
Sturgeon isn’t likeable or a people person. Of course the SNP spent ages trying
to paint Sturgeon as a ‘caring person’ which to me was a ploy on the gullible
for votes.

Black added:

“I think things should change and that it might be an idea
for Nicola to take the time to talk to folk or whatever but I hope that someone
else further down the line does have a different experience to me”.

Has Black passed through the AllisonHunterTraining School, named
after the non famous Glasgow Councillor who did very little activism in the
Govan ward that she represented and who no one knew. This video link below is
her daughter, also a councillor, Sturgeon’s pal and also a complete waste of
space

Much has been made about Mhairi Black’s extremely poor voting
record, so as well as opening up her heart, we get treated to the fact she has
opened up her ‘rear end’ due to the novovirus and bugs she has caught in travelling
back and forth to deepest darkness London. One wonders has she heard of washing your
hands before she eats her food!

Also as she misses the Scottish water, buy bottled.

Finally, Black said

“I am absolutely buzzing to get home from London, not just for family, but for
professional reasons as well – you can’t represent somewhere well if you’re
never in it”.

Then she said:

“I’m tired of sitting in surgeries”.

To me this sounds like mixed messages and someone who really
doesn’t want to be doing public service, maybe instead of Westminster she should opt to try for
Holyrood, clearly her social life is more important.

I think the word that sums up the attitude from Brussels is extortion!

Extortion is defined as the practice of obtaining something,
especially money, through force or threats, the EU wants their cake and eat it
so it seems, and we aren’t getting a unique deal in the trade talks, we can
have what they give us.

So, why waste the time, prolong the agony, save the plane
fares and say thanks but no thanks, Michel Barnier said the EU would accept
Britain's desire to quit the single market, they would ‘accept’, hilarious,
they aren’t getting a choice, as to be pressured into accepting one of a small
number of existing models, if that doesn’t meet our needs then we should just
refuse.

No is a powerful word, and it is time the UK Government made
full use of it in these talks, we aren’t some backwater economy, we are the
fifth largest in the world, people and countries want our goods, services and
people.

EU negotiator Michel Barnier can make as many repeated
warnings there would be no 'cherry picking' but the truth is the EU needs a
deal with the UK
more than we need a deal with them.

Money in this case really talks.

One thing which Barnier hasn’t fully grasped is the concept
that unless the UK
is happy, there will be no deal and no deal means no £39 bn or whatever the
divorce bill runs to. EU negotiator Michel Barnier seems to me to be lazy,
which is why he wants Britain
to choose between one of two broad models that already exist, based on how Norway and Canada work with the EU.

Norway
accepts almost all EU single market rules and in return gets free access to EU
markets; on the other hand, Canada
has less access but much more freedom over how it regulates business. David
Davis says he favours a 'Canada
plus plus plus' deal so Barnier is under pressure to deliver, if there is no
deal, then the cushion of £39bn isn’t there for the EU. Britain makes
up 20% of the EU, and the EU is now forced to reform or others have to make up
the short fall, with Angela Merkel facing problems domestically at home, can
she want to face an angry German public with a huge extra bill?

I personally doubt it; her career is rather shaky at present
as election results show all too graphically. All the way through these talks
the public have only gotten snippets of what is going on, it seems everything
is hush hush, but at some stage, everything will have to be shown to the
public.

The public voted for Brexit, we expect as an aside not to be
ripped off, we can see how trade done properly can be mutually benefit both the
EU and the UK, but we aren’t going to be held to ransom by unreasonable demands,
the EU has shown its hand, it is holding a bluff pretending they have a royal
flush, well the bluff is going to be called, at that point there are going to
be several very and deeply unhappy Europeans in the room.

Finally in times like these with Europe in a mess socially
and politically, we are doing the right thing by leaving the EU, Europe is
heading for a dark place, the signs are clearly there, their direction of
travel is wrong and conflict will eventually come whether that is a new cold
war with Russia and/or the domestic variety which is why there the creation of
an EU army.

Christmas is a time of giving, goodwill to all men and women
and turkey, well it seems that unpopular Nicola Sturgeon has decided to hit a
million Scots with higher tax bills, it seems that ‘taking’ is the order of the
day. You could also add that ‘goodwill has gone right out the window as Derek
MacKay has delivered a ‘turkey’ of a budget.

So, what is this SNP budget about?

Basically Scots are being asked to pay for SNP incompetence,
we are paying for failure; money is being sucked into paying for a broken
system of government which isn’t being reformed. Like a ship which is leaking
below the water line, the SNP solution is to buy more buckets.

We are now in a financially failed State as the widening tax
gap with England proves
beyond a shadow of a doubt, higher bills for one million Scots and in return
lesser services, poor services and a budget which doesn’t help progress Scotland
forward. Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has trebled the number of Scots who
will pay more tax than people other people in the rest of the UK in 2018/19.

We are paying for failure to govern, failure to manage and generally
failure to produce, and what we get in return is gimmicks, if the 2021 election
for Holyrood was important, this budget just ramped that election up.

Broken SNP promises are nothing new as Scots already know, but
to break the SNP 2016 manifesto promise to freeze the basic rate of income tax
shows as I have said in the past, there is an issue of trust. If you want to
know how painful Scottish independence would be for Scotland, then Nicola Sturgeon just
served up a ‘starter’, the main course would ‘burst your bank account’. The SNP
made a big deal about how good they were to manage Scotland’s finances, this
was done by under spending and failing to provide for the vulnerable, that myth
is now gone!

A new “intermediate” tax band of 21p will apply to those
earning more than £24,000, while the higher rate will be raised from 40p to 41p
and the top rate from 45p to 46p. If you think back to the 70’s, the SNP ran
with a policy of a penny for Scotland, 2017, we have a new version of a
rehashed policy from a party devoid of new ideas and stuck in the mindset of
recycling old ones as to ‘justify’ a time when being in the SNP was to be
effectively unelectable.

The changes are said to raise an extra £164m but the real question,
the elephant in the room is what is Scotland’s budget being spent on?

We have depressed revenues caused by a faltering and
stagnant economy which is hamstrung by low productivity, the SNP have made Scotland
an unattractive place to do business, without reform of government and local
authority, the budget is just a stop gap.

Mackay says his Budget would build a fairer Scotland,
support business, and protect services despite the most challenging economic
backdrop since devolution began in 1999.

This begs the questions, but the prime one is, all that this
takes is a penny in the pound?

As normal SNP MSPs decided to applaud the decision to raise
taxes, in the past when other parties did this, they didn’t applaud presumably
they we were attempting to ‘fairer Scotland, support business, and protect
services’, but your average SNP MSP is just a drone, they have to applaud
because in reality if they didn’t no one else would and the deafening silence
round the chamber would be unbearable for the ‘civic nationalist’.

In attempting to sound convincing about this failed budget,
Mackay said:

"Scotland
is not just the fairest taxed part of the UK
but, for the majority of taxpayers, the lowest taxed part of the UK.,

But guess what, the devil in the detail shows any benefit
would just be £20, or 38p a week, at best, if you wait three weeks you can go
buy a 2 litre carton of milk for the tea or the cereal, in the cold weather,
you might even go porridge.

Tory finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said:

“This Nat tax will hit nearly half of Scottish workers in
the pocket. That is a tax on aspiration, a punishment for daring to work hard,
and a direct breach of the promise made by the SNP in its election manifesto. Today,
every single SNP member of the Scottish Government has broken that
promise to the Scottish people”.

He added:

“That will not escape the notice of voters, who will never
believe a word the Nationalists say again. The message from this budget is
clear: don’t be ambitious, don’t be hard working, and don’t be successful in
the SNP’s Scotland.
If you are, the SNP will penalise you for its own failure to grow the economy.”

Of course in any budget, we get to hear from some interested
parties such as John Dickie of the Child Poverty Action Group, he said:

“With over one four children growing up in poverty in a
country as wealthy as Scotland it is a welcome step forward that the draft
Budget makes the case for use of tax powers to harness that wealth to prevent
poverty.”

Do you feel that Scotland is wealthy?

Have you seen the soup kitchens in this country, have you
noticed the foodbanks, have you seen the decline of the health service right
across the board, the lack of real change to infrastructure, the lack of a
manufacturing base and how Scotland has become unattractive to business because
of the constant mismanagement and threat of continual independence referendums.

Finally, if you read the blog a lot you will have noticed
that generally I really don’t blog on budgets whether Westminster or Holyrood to any great degree,
this is because the budgets don’t address the real problems in how government,
national or local operates, it is about a cash grab.

This budget is just a failed opportunity, it is weak, it
just tinkers, we were already paying through the nose for poor services, now we
are paying more and those services are getting cut, we aren’t living in a
wealthy country.

The Alex Salmond Show or as some wags call it, the Alex
Salmondski Show, the slide downwards from dignity and grace continues unabated,
oh how the mighty have fallen.This seems to be a truth in European politics that towards
the end of their tenure, certain politicians just keep making bad decisions. Some
decisions however end up being the one that ‘crosses the rubicon’, from there it
is said there is no way back.

One of the dreadful parts of the Salmond show is reading out of
tweets, as if to justify his show’s existence, it shows a lack of confidence.

If you look at this episode, which was done for St Andrew’s day, you will see
that rather than being an upbeat show, it has a sense of gloom in the air, like
someone just lost.

For a show with supposed ambition, it is certainly lacking,
and who thought it was a good idea for Tasmina Ahmed-Shiekh to do a piece on
tartan?

If this is the fluffy piece, then clearly those behind the show have a
steep learning curve to go through. Oh how the wannabe mighty have fallen in
the case of Tasmina Ahmed-Shiekh, one day and MP at the House of Commons and
then a few short months scratching out an existence doing what exactly?

Will Tasmina be doing a spot promoting and selling vacuum
cleaners down the line, after all if you aspire to be serious then surely a
piece about hoovering is required viewing for the masses.

As to the Kenny MacAskill appearance, this was just rank, hashing
over a dead case involving a now dead man, was this supposed to be a 'history
moment' or just plain bad taste because Salmond needed a ‘filler’.

In episode 4, we had the Brexit special, the latter half of
the show featured disgraced SNP MP Angus MacNeil who was outed in a 'three in a
bed' romp while his then wife was ‘up the stick’, commonly known as preggers.

Miss Cowdy who ended up with SNP MP Stewart Hosie is said to
have told her friends that she saw SNP MPs as romantic revolutionaries, describing
them as 'the Mujahideen of British politicians'.

In the jihad to see who would win Cowdy, Angus MacNeil lost
out, whether you view that as a good thing or not depends on your taste, but
Cowdy was better looking than Hosie and MacNeil’s wives.

In the SNP, there is the Court of King Alex and the Court of
Queen Nicola, it seems that the Salmond
Court is willing to support his RT show but
Sturgeon’s crowd aren’t. Having Angus MacNeil on we are told was without
permission of SNP bosses, but I doubt that anything will come of it. If you
think about it, as Nicola Sturgeon has destroyed SNP support, the nationalist trend is
downwards, the SNP bosses will probably have in the back of their minds ‘what
if’, what if Salmond returns as leader in the future.

So, Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil becomes the first SNP
politician in office to appear on The Alex Salmond Show, what a badge of honour.
This part of the Salmond show had an SNP Fringe meeting about it although Nigel
Evans MP joined the chat, he supports Brexit.

As Jackson Carlaw aptly put it:

“It seems the only guests Alex Salmond can muster are old
pals. It’s hardly the agenda-setting show he boasted it would be”.

Although RT is registered as a broadcaster, and it does some
interesting shows and documentaries, the Alex Salmond Show is remarkably stale,
and muted, it seems that Alex Salmond forgot he is the presenter whose job it
is to make ‘the story’ centre stage rather than him.

Certainly Alex Salmond is no Andrew Neil of the BBC, and it
shows.

Scottish Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

"When this show was announced I suggested that the
former First Minister might want to use it to highlight the plight of some of
those pushing back against the repressive Putin regime, sadly the quality of guest
has been rather lower. Nicola Sturgeon will have her head in her hands that
another SNP parliamentarian is indulging Putin's propaganda channel."

Finally, I don’t know about you but if I was giving tips for
the show, I would say, the lightening is crap; the cameraman needs to hold the
camera steady; someone needs to get rid of the ‘haunted’ feel, stop reading out
tweets, it is rather sad and pathetic and set an agenda..... if capable.

And address this, “It seems the only guests Alex Salmond can
muster are old pals. It’s hardly the agenda-setting show he boasted it would be”.

It is getting near Xmas, a time of goodwill to all men,
women, children and furry little creatures, but it seems the SNP Westminster
leader Ian Blackford wants to spoil it all by saying Theresa May needs to ‘draft’
in ‘super grass’ Nicola Sturgeon. In politics, it is important to maintain
confidences, that way people who won’t normally give each other the time of day
can work together for the greater good.

It is so funny that the SNP yet again are asking for
something which they can’t get, in the Brexit talks, Nicola Sturgeon in the
room while key decisions are being taken, Sturgeon has no remit to get in, and
as to goodwill with the UK Government; that died out years ago as her feral mob
acted up at Westminster.

Why on earth would Theresa May bring the First Ministers of
Scotland and Wales into the next phase of negotiations with the EU when they
are unwilling to support the UK Government unless they get what they want out of it.
As we all know, and this isn’t registering with some people, the decision to
leave the EU has been made, out means out!

What out doesn’t mean is committing to staying in the
single market and customs union.

As to the Irish question, I don’t see the need for a hard
border or that Northern Ireland
gets a different deal than any other part of the UK. Ideally it would be better if Eire left the EU but staying is their choice, leaving is
ours. At present, don’t get too upset about what you are reading, the most
important part of the talks is still to come, the trade deal.

Until a deal is made, there is no deal!

And then once that happens, everyone can get their 10 cents
worth in as to does this represent value and what have you.

David Davis judging by the press isn’t having a good time
hit the nail on the head when he said what I think above, the ‘divorce’ agreement struck last week,
including a financial settlement with the EU of over £35 billion, would only
apply if trade talks are successful.

Apparently, as the Brexit secretary he is seeking a “Canada plus plus plus” deal that adds access to
services to the CETA agreement signed off by Ottawa
and Brussels
last year.

CETA will benefit European companies by getting rid of
99% of the duties (taxes) they have to pay at Canadian customs. The same
will apply to Canadian businesses exporting to the EU.

This will be seen as the way to go, what ‘Canada plus
plus plus’ as a deal actually means is open to guessing, and for that time will
tell because at some point someone is going to have to flesh that out.

In my opinion, the Irish question is a red herring, EU
regulations on both sides of the Irish border isn’t the UK Government’s
problem, that is the problem of business, and I am sure they will meet EU
regulations because that is the price of doing business. It seems that the SNP
are dead keen to get Labour Party support for their wrecking action by trying
to get membership of the single market. Keir Stramer has made a right fool of
himself over Brexit and therefore can’t be taken seriously, hopefully the rest
of the Labour Party aren’t that stupid.

So far UK
ministers are refusing calls from the Scottish and Welsh Governments to be
directly involved Brexit negotiations; personally I wouldn’t allow them to be
part of the team. Their attitude is not professionally and as such they have no
case to make for inclusion. I just laugh when I read that Blackford said
devolved administrations had to have a greater role in the second phase of
negotiations. He then used the Irish question as his lynchpin to make what must
be a feeble case.

Blackford said:

“I would remind the Prime Minister that we’re talking about
four nation states within the United
Kingdom. We can see the difficulty she has
gotten into over Ireland.
What the Prime Minister should do is pull the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales into
these negotiations. She’s also got to understand that the people in Scotland and in Northern Ireland voted to remain in
the EU and we’re asking for her to respect the wishes of the Scottish people
and the Scottish Government, who have made it clear that we should be staying
in the single market and customs union.”

This is the same old tired argument that the nations of the UK voted as an individual nation when in fact
this was a UK
wide vote. There is no mandate in Scotland
for staying in the EU because in 2014, the people of Scotland
voted to stay part of the United
Kingdom.

The SNP are keen to promote Nicola Sturgeon as a ‘statesman’
on the world stage, in fact my position from before is the same as it is now,
if Nicola Sturgeon wants to be on the world stage, then someone get her a brush
and shovel. This inept and ludicrous individual is a clear embarrassment to Scotland, at the weekend she was opening a ‘café’
in Glasgow.

Think about it, opening a café….. ffs!

Finally, as with all silly requests by the SNP, this one
seems destine for the bin, maybe Nicola Sturgeon should go back to her slum
ghetto of Govanhill and address the issue of Romanian thieves, organised
begging gangs, child sexual abuse.

We all like a laugh, and one ‘gag’ that is doing the rounds
is failed SNP education minister Mike Russell, who has what I would describe as
a ‘fake job’ as Scotland’s Brexit minister asking rival Holyrood parties to
unite and “speak with one voice” in a bid to keep the UK in the single market.

The SNP like to organise people into little voting clusters
with them ‘leading’ them and instructing them how to vote. Although some people
like the Scottish Greens will probably tag along in the SNP wake, I don’t see
Scottish Labour or the Scottish Conservatives playing ball at all.

At the present moment, there is a lot of political turmoil,
a lot of heat, a lot of noise and little clarity on Brexit and where we stand
in the process.

This is nonsense, we should be moving towards hard Brexit,
and that should be the route for Britain’s departure from the
European Union (EU). The EU isn’t a
country, it isn’t a ‘super state’, it is a political organisation. Ever since
the UK voted for Brexit, many people in power have attempted to undermine the
democratic vote and attempt to hang onto EU membership, even by proxy of the ‘single
market’.

The SNP market is EU membership without benefits, you have
to ask why would these people seek to undermine democracy and the will of the
people, well, the answer is clearly nothing noble, it is squalid petty personal
gain. A recent piece of ‘noise’ is the threat of legal action by the Scottish Green
MSPs, a Labour MEP and an SNP MEP towards the UK Government.

That threat is worthless, both David Martin and Alyn Smith
are losing their jobs, and they better get use to the idea because it will be
happening soon enough. As always the SNP via Mike Russell said there was “overwhelming
support” the SNP position in Holyrood and among the public.

People who don’t understand what the single market means
show “overwhelming support” the SNP position?

“Single market rules require the free movement from one EU
member country to another of goods, people, services and capital (the so-called
‘four
freedoms’)”.

Under WTO rules, which is the back stop, you still get
movement of good, services and capital, but the part the Remainers want is ‘free
movement of people’ which effectively would see the UK allowing access to 600
million EU citizens. Already we have seen the effect of negative migration
throughout Europe which has caused a breakdown
of social cohesion and led to the rise of what is termed by the media as the ‘far
right’.

In the Brexit debate, Leave campaigners came from the left
and the right, including people who are unionists and Scottish independence
supporters, there is more to this issue than is presented by soundbytes of the
media and politicians.

Mike Russell is Nicola Sturgeon’s proxy, his job, is a non
job, he is merely an interested spectator with a fake title which is
meaningless in the grand scheme of things, so him chanting for the European
single market and customs union is hollow, his opinion carries no weight.

At present, we have a manufactured ‘problem’ regarding the
border between Northern and Eire, Prime Minister Theresa May is seeking urgent
talks with Northern Irish leaders after the UK Government’s attempts to settle
the Irish border issue failed to reach agreement.

Is the Irish question a big deal, yes and no, ideally, it
would be better for Eire to also leave the EU, and come into a trading block
with the UK, or join a trading blocking with the US and Nordic countries
alongside the UK if one can be setup post Brexit. I support the Democratic
Unionist Party that Northern Ireland
should have the same deal as the rest of the UK. We are seeing separate deals
floated as an alternative but the vote on 23rd June 2016 wasn’t for separate
deals for different parts of the UK, it was one out, all out to coin
a phrase.

It is not acceptable for any arrangement which sees Northern Ireland treated differently from the
rest of the UK.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson also pitched in
and echoed this sentiment when she made clear the UK should not be divided by
‘’different deals for different home nations’’.

In an attempt to sow division, SNP leader who was on the
wrong side of the Brexit debate and vote said on twitter:

“really interesting the number of senior DUP people
retweeting @RuthDavidsonMSP...”

This is a dig because the DUP are social Conservatives who
hold other views which Ruth Davidson doesn’t on other issues, this is called
shit stirring by Sturgeon, as we all know; Nicola Sturgeon lacks class and
breeding.

So, Mike Russell says:

“If this chamber were to speak with one voice on membership
of the single market and the customs union, I think it would be very effective
indeed. Police lack numbers to protect ‘porous’ Irish border under Brexit. Single
market membership for the whole of the UK would be the way out of this
incredible mess that has been created by Theresa May and I urge it on every
member in this chamber.”

This means lets create a ‘rule’, situation or treaty to
ignore the wishes of the British people, as to the ‘porous’ Irish border , the
SNP solution is to ignore problems, along time ago, I said ‘the solution to a
problem, is not the creation of another problem’. This ‘fix’ by the SNP is more
to do with undermining the UK and their failed attempts to engineer another
independence bid, the last one was based on deception, thuggery and lies, and
we well remember that result.

Scottish Labour has a new Leader, lucky for them it isn’t
Anas Sarwar who in his election literature said he was backing the ‘single
market’, when I read this, I immediately chucked his election leaflet in the
bin. Richard Leonard has been asked by the SNP to move towards the SNP position
thus undermining his leadership position; I doubt he is that stupid, well I
hope he isn’t for his sake.

Mike Russell said on Scottish Labour:

“The whole of these islands should be in the single market
and the customs union - we urge that upon all, but particularly upon the Labour
Party. If the Labour Party were to adopt that to be a standard; that would move
this on very considerably indeed”.

I would just blank this, why involve yourself with an idiot
and get dragged down, the SNP position is doomed to failure and as the polls
show and their record in government, everything is going in a downward
direction of travel.

One of the things which needed to happen and was most
important in the recent Scottish Labour leadership contest was the election of
Richard Leonard as leader in preference to Anas Sarwar. If Anas Sarwar had
become leader, it would have been a gift to the SNP, although the press love to
use the term ‘moderate’ when describing the right wing of the Labour Party,
these people aren’t.

If you have any doubts why you should have voted for Richard
Leonard, then this story tells you all you need to know.

Anas Sarwar’s campaign was a disaster, and this final cherry
is the tin lid in my opinion, Anas can’t ever again try and attempt to be the ‘man
of the people’ because patently he isn’t and never was, his window for being
leader like Ken Macintosh has gone.

The news of Richard Leonard is bad news for the SNP leader
Nicola Sturgeon, the tale of the tape in a recent poll shows why, support for Scottish Labour has
grown under the new leader. The revelation may have taken some people by
surprise but not me, after being dropped to being the third party of Scottish
politics the polls, the Scottish Labour Party has moved into second place.

This means that a raft of sitting SNP MPs right across
Scotland face losing their seats when a Westminster election happens, such as
Chris Stephens in Glasgow South West and David Linden in Glasgow East.

Imagine going into Xmas and thinking, in a few short years,
they could be facing the bitter taste of defeat and unemployment. Of course, we
are a good while away from either a Westminster
or Holyrood election so in theory there is everything to play for; the Scottish
Conservatives now have a problem.

In the last couple of elections, they did rather well,
especially at Westminster but the thing in politics is momentum, and the
Conservatives need to address an obvious flaw in their thinking, you can’t win
Holyrood if you take your ‘foot off the gas’, although the Scottish
Conservative MPs fixed the vat problem with Police Scotland, they need to go a
lot further, so far, the evidence isn’t there to see Ruth Davidson win in 2021.

Westminster support for the SNP sits on 37 per cent, the
same as the party polled in June so after six months, they still haven’t made
an impact, although Labour has increased by one point to 28 per cent, the
direction of travel isn’t certain, Scottish Labour still isn’t in a fixed state
to campaign, despite various factions popping up claiming that they are the
future. What is interesting to me is that the Scottish Conservatives are down
four to 25 per cent, it seems that Scottish Conservatives need to be doing ‘things’.

In case you don’t know what ‘things’ are, this is things for
the poor and disadvantaged, what they will probably grasp is that they have a
need in Scotland for social conservatism rather than liberal conservatism.

Although Scottish Parties are fixated on Holyrood due to
their leaders being elected there, the Scottish Labour Party has a mountain to
climb, SNP lead on 39 per cent for constituency voting intentions, followed by
Labour on 25 per cent. As things stand at present, we are looking still at
minority SNP government in my opinion unless events change, and currently, I
see no evidence of a shift that see Labour being installed with a minority at
Holyrood but by the same token, I don’t see the SNP with the help of the
Scottish Greens pulling off a majority coalition either.

Professor John Curtice said even a marginal change in
support could have a big impact on future elections and he is right, ‘one man
can make a different’.

He said:

"Scotland has
gone from being a land of safe seats to a land of marginals. Even a change of
just one per cent could see some seats change hands."

Scottish Labour MSP James Kelly said:

“As we saw in the General Election, voters are coming
back to Labour. The SNP and the Tories offer nothing but division and despair
at Holyrood and Westminster.
Labour in contrast has inspired voters across the country with a vision of hope
and real change.”

He added:

“It is no surprise to see people in Scotland thinking the
Tories will not make a success of Brexit, with Theresa May’s negotiations
in Brussels lurching from bad to worse. This unstable and divided government is
increasingly being pulled apart by hard-right Tory MPs who are determined to
deliver Brexit at any price to working people. Labour is determined that our
economic future should be at the heart of Brexit negotiations, offering
businesses and workers the certainty they need that their rights and
protections will not be traded away.”

This may sound interesting to people who don’t know better
but in Scotland, Scottish Labour need to be focused on the SNP rather than
trying to cast their nets too wide, the ‘story’ gets diluted when you have too
many parties in the mix, and to be honest it just sounds too much like poor
political spinning.

Although uncertainty over Brexit has some people worried,
these people need to cool their jets, Brexit despite the press hype of doom and
gloom is ticking along nicely; high drama may look good on the telly, but when
it comes to real money, a deal is on the cards.

So, the verdict is as John Curtice says:

“Scotland has
gone from being a land of safe seats to a land of marginals”.

I think this revelation when it starts to sink in might mean
that SNP MP Chris Stephens along with his office dug, Jonathan Mackie start
buying triple ply toilet paper, their time to start shitting themselves starts
now.

Jingo bells jingo bells, jingle all the way, it is that time
of year, it is getting near Xmas, a time for politicians to do the traditional
stunts of ‘caring’ for the homeless and disadvantaged, it is time to get that
much needed ‘photo op’ standing beside someone poor!

The poor are useful to politicians in several ways, either
as a stick to beat the current government or as a way of saving money since
they shy away from taxing the rich who avoid paying tax, plus there is the
added bonus of using them to get elected. Once upon a time, in a land far, far
away, SNP MP Mhairi Black did a ‘stint’ of helping the homeless.

In a speech, she highlighted one man who didn’t eat or drink
for five days to afford to pay the bus fare to the job centre. Well, this is
either a lie or this person is one dumb bastard, you see there are places to
eat for free in Glasgow, such as LHM at the Barras, the Glasgow City Mission
and at Cadogan Street, there are even roving soup kitchens in Glasgow now where
people go to the places where people rough sleep to give them hot food.

Having got elected, why didn’t SNP MP Mhairi Black come back
to continue to help at Glasgow City Mission?

I don’t know, I am just asking the question!

Having used the people, they were now surplus to her
requirements, it seems ‘caring’ is only for Xmas or getting ‘elected’ because
it is important to tick the box that ‘you know what the conditions are like for
the poor’, but the reality is Mhairi Black knows nothing about the poor.

SNP MP Mhairi Black is just another SNP politician using
people, I can’t take this middle class clown seriously as she plays at being
working class, it is to me offensive; her act is like watching a monkey at a
chimp’s tea party.

SNP MP Mhairi Black is a career politician, nothing more.

It seems that what is good for Mhairi Black is good enough
for her boss, the fake and charmless hypocrite Nicola Sturgeon who has no
problem being shacked up in Bute House or indeed a five star hotel. That being
the case, it seems that others have seen through Nicola Sturgeon as she was
rightly heckled by the poor as she announces new action on homelessness.
Visiting a homeless shelter was another opportunity to try and foster her ‘mother
of the nation’ but it seems that the shelter’s customers weren’t having it as
Sturgeon wanted her photo op.

One brave homeless woman, who was bundled away by shelter
staff, as she called out:

“This is all publicity. The minute they go away this will
all disappear and it will be back to we get nothing, again."

There is now an ‘industry’ of professional helpers who get the
funding such as Edinburgh’s Streetwork homelessness charity; presumably
the SNP thought a few poor people hanging about would increase the credibility
value of Nicola Sturgeon, but that turned sour as she was met with shouts of
“publicity stunt”.

Since Nicola Sturgeon has effectively abandoned Govanhill to
its fate, child prostitution, slum housing, place looking like a favela or
midden, and rampant crime, and landlords screwing the poor out of their cash,
what the hell is Nicola Sturgeon doing hanging around the poor?

It is over three weeks plus till xmas!!!!!!!

After being called out for the fake she is, Sturgeon said it
was “absolutely understandable and legitimate” if some homeless people were
sceptical of the SNP Government’s commitment.

She added:

“But the recommendations we are talking about today haven’t
come from Government, they’ve not been dreamt up by us. We asked a group of
experts to come together – not to look at something in the long term, but to
look firstly at what can be done this winter. And that’s what we’re talking
about today. And then, we’ll look in more detail at what we can do longer term.
So there’s a determination and a seriousness of intent and additional
investment behind this. But rather than stand here today and seek to persuade
with words those in these predicaments who are understandably sceptical, I
think what I want to do is prove it through the actions we’ve taken.”

The key part of what Sturgeon said to take note of is:

“they’ve (recommendations) not been dreamt up by us.”

I never doubted that the SNP would dream any ideas of how to
help the poor, I just accept that as a given, unless there was an election in
the offing for Westminster, the use of the foodbank gag in 2015 was quite
noticeable, especially in Glasgow South West/ Pollok.

Isn’t it refreshing that poor people managed to heckle
Nicola Sturgeon and the rest of us plebs get to hear about it, of course the
poor were bundled away immediately but the damage was done, it is time the SNP
stopped using the poor as their political plaything, people really are sick of
it.

Finally, this pathetic attempt to turn Nicola Sturgeon into
the ‘mother of the nation’ is really insulting to the intelligence, she really
is a quite despicable individual without an ounce of human compassion or humanity; she is a ‘user of people’.